I am jumping into the word of blogs because
Jules constructed the Barne Yarn, named it, offered to continue with the
administration, will promote it on FB and took full graphic design control. For
my part, Julia told me to post some of the rubbish lying round my hard drives and
use it as an outlet to store future literary flights of fancy; writing with out
a purpose pieces being given a purpose.
So what are we going to pen up in the Barne
Yarn? Firstly my hard drive archive is a scary place. I have driven Jules spare
making her read, correct and most importantly laugh at what I’ve written
regardless of whether she thinks my stuff is funny or not, that is what good
marriages are built on. The archives are mostly filled with work newsletters,
footy write-ups, my contributions as secret (if badly kept secret) writer of
Skippy’s Droppings*, holiday memories and exploratory free form trains of
thought. I concede that most of these
pieces have needed me to provide Julia with a fair amount of background in
order for her (the person who knows me best) to understand. I also concede that
any audience that the information is relevant to has already seen it so the
writing has served its purpose and should be left to rest in peace. So why the
hell would I post these long buried relics? Well I don’t know why, but I’m
posting small snippets of the archive anyway. While this does not bode well for
visitors to the Barne Yarn I will make sure to edit for relevance, add context
and remove specifics to make a more accessible article and protect the guilty.
*disclosure: an idea stolen from a more
creative person years earlier
For
once I have done some homework to see what other nobodies post on blogs and
from my very limited knowledge I have decided they fall into a few distinct
categories a couple of which I will emulate.
Thankfully a lack of knowledge doesn’t seem
to be a barrier to many fellow bloggers. Bloggers often seem free to deliver
uninformed opinion and do so with a superior self-righteous air. This is a
style I’ll be sure to slip into on a regular basis.
It is an oft-repeated truism that people
seek out anything that will support their own biased world view. Very few of us
choose to increase their knowledge and/or gain a new perspective by chasing
challenging, thought provoking or even simply varying opinions. In fact I recently
read about a study that suggested political bias impaired peoples ability to
interpret simple information. In the study people where given a set of made up data
and asked to interpret what the data was telling them. When the made up data
was manipulated to conflict with the test subjects firmly held political view they
couldn’t correctly interpret the data. When the test subjects were told the information
referred to a benign topic they had no trouble correctly interpreting it**. So
there is no point trying to change your mind about important topics even if I
am unequivocally more right than you. I am clearly far better off providing
indignant, angry and humorous rants on safe topics most readers will agree
with. To do this I’ll need to establish certain prejudices build an agreeable
audience and run rampant along that line of bias, gleefully harvesting the
goodwill of the like minded. True independent, fact based thinkers that
challenge convention are truly heroic characters but they are also extremely
easy to make fun of. Rather than changing minds it is far easier to go with
conventional wisdom and treat unpopular independent thinkers as simple-minded
buffoons put on this earth to be lampooned by the sheep like masses. You can
rest assured if this blog was written in the dark ages I would be cheering the
burning of witches,
LMFAO at anyone claiming the earth is round and posting
links to alchemists web sites. In other words you won’t learn anything from
visiting the Barne Yarn, but you should enjoy having your prejudices reinforced
while freely laughing at anyone who disagrees with us geniuses. I make no bones
about preferring to be a jolly court jester than a serious political prisoner,
I can always change sides when the winds of change start blowing. **No I’m not posting a link to the study,
just take my word for it.
Others blogs are all about daily life with little
pearls of homespun wisdom in a dear diary style. Inevitably these blogs are
great fun for the writer and cripplingly boring for the reader… the exact style
of blog you will find at the Barne Yarn. This proves I won’t listen to good advice
even if it is my own. My advice to you, which you can take or leave, strap on
the vomit bucket the Barne Yarn will be brimming with sickly sweet family
stories.
The common alternative to the dear diary is
is the cynical, sarcastic style that mines that rich vein of comedy gold about
men being domestically and socially hopeless, women as insane, emotional
whirlwinds and kids being equal parts cute and frustrating. I don’t know the Barne
Yarn password and even if I did how to post this stuff so Julia will be quasi
gatekeeper. This will no doubt impeded my ability to cash in on the plethora of
Mars and Venus inspired jokes that are so easy to come up with or steal. The
upside is if I did have a fully independent blog I would definitely be pursuing
the cheap exploitive laughs. This would send me on the road to divorce in a few
years time when the family eventually stumbled across the blog and get hit with
an avalanche of built cheap jokes at their expense.
So irrelevant articles from my hard drive,
rants designed to reinforce your bias and personal family insights will form the
bulk of the low hanging fruit you’ll be served up in The Barne Yarn. Other styles of blog all seem to require
something I haven’t got.
Professional writers with something to say
or celebrities with a profile to keep clearly can’t be emulated by me. Instructional, helpful or inspiring blogs have
goals that I have neither the ability or energy to pursue. Other blogs have
something to sell hidden subtly in the text or rammed straight down your
throat. Unfortunately the current and projected level of readership does mean advertisers
would be better off slapping an ad on a lamppost than asking me to insert their
product into my pages. I am also above selling out, actually scrub that, I have
a beautiful 2.5 seater couch and two recliners for sale. They are in a plush
electric blue velour and would be a compliment any room. The only danger in
buying these magnificent pieces is that you will miss all your favourite TV shows,
because once you’ve found your way into their caress at the end of a tiring day
you are just seconds away from the land of nod. Contact Jules on facebook to
purchase, but hurry they won’t last long.
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